This is the joint website of Women Against Rape and Black Women's Rape Action Project. Both organisations are based on self-help and provide support, legal information and advocacy. We campaign for justice and protection for all women and girls, including asylum seekers, who have suffered sexual, domestic and/or racist violence.

WAR was founded in 1976. It has won changes in the law, such as making rape in marriage a crime, set legal precedents and achieved compensation for many women. BWRAP was founded in 1991. It focuses on getting justice for women of colour, bringing out the particular discrimination they face. It has prevented the deportation of many rape survivors. Both organisations are multiracial.

LISA LONGSTAFF from Women Against Rape and CRISTEL AMISS of the Black Women’s Rape Action Project examine the state’s attempts at obfuscation

Far from tackling rape, the government’s response to the review into the child rape epidemic in Oxford is a merely smokescreen to “manage” the outcry.

The government proposes to make it compulsory to report any underage sexual activity as child abuse. But this would increase the power of the state to control children rather than the power of children and their families to get justice.
It also hides child rape, calling it abuse or exploitation instead. And it disconnects child survivors from adult survivors, especially women. And let’s not forget that only 5.7 per cent of recorded rape ends in conviction and that 90 per cent of rapists get away with it.

The government’s response to today’s review of child rape in Oxford about an epidemic of rape of children, especially those in care, is a smokescreen to manage the outcry rather than deal with the rape.

In response to the Oxford rape and child abuse, the government proposes to make it compulsory to report any underage sexual activity as child abuse. This is another smokescreen aimed at increasing the power of the state to control children rather than the power of children and their families to get justice. It is also a way of hiding child rape (calling it abuse or exploitation instead), and of disconnecting the neglect of the rape of young girls and boys from the neglect of rape of adults, especially of women. Let´s not forget that only 6.7% of rape ends in conviction and that 90% of rapists get away with it. (‘Why do the police deal with rape cases so badly?’)

WHEN WILL CHILD ABUSE SURVIVOURS/VICTIMS OBTAIN JUSTICE – JUSTICE CONTINUES TO BE DENIED?

I am writing this as a 60 year old woman who was a 12 year old victim of sexual abuse. I never got justice. I want to expose the lack of professionalism of the police and social services. I believe it is a problem throughout the width and breath of the British Isles which proactively denies us child abuse survivors/victims a voice or justice.

Jail Rapists NOT Rape Victims
Tuesday 2 December 2014, 6-8pm

House of Commons, Committee Room 10, London SW1 Westminster Allow 20 minutes to pass through security.

Women who have been imprisoned or threatened with arrest after biased rape investigations, their families, Black Women’s Rape Action Project and Women Against Rape, are extending our campaign to stop the prosecution of rape survivors and clear the names of those who have been wrongly convicted.

Evidence to Joint Select Human Rights Committee Inquiry into Violence Against Women and Girls From Women Against Rape

1. Refusal to prosecute rapists including violent partners

“In the 12 months to March 2013 there were about 10,000 recorded rapes of adults in England and Wales, and about 6,000 recorded rapes of children.
Only 1,820 (18%) of those recorded rape allegations led to a "sanction detection" in which an offender was charged or cautioned for the offence, and 1,423 (12%) of cases were "no crimed". [“Police 'culture of disbelief' over rape claims alarms official monitoring group”, Alan Travis, The Guardian, 31 January 2014.]